Abdul Rahman Arif

Abdul Rahman Arif (14 April 1916-24 August 2007) was President of Iraq from 16 April 1966 to 17 July 1968, succeeding Abdul Salam Arif and preceding Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr.

Biography
Abdul Rahman Arif was born on 14 April 1916 in Baghdad, Ottoman Empire. He was the brother of Abdul Salam Arif, and when his brother seized power in a 1963 coup, Abdul Rahman was appointeed head of the Iraqi Army. In April 1966, his brother died in a plane crash, so Abdul Rahman became the new President of the Republic of Iraq. He had a slack and indecisive rule, and he was military defeated in the First Iraqi-Kurdish War by Mustafa Barzani's forces, who were backed by Israel and Iran, and on 17 July 1968 Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and the Iraqi Ba'ath Party overthrew Arif in a bloodless coup. He was exiled to Turkey, and in 1979 Saddam Hussein allowed him to return to Ba'athist Iraq. Arif was only allowed to leave the country once for the hajj, and he moved to Amman, Jordan after Saddam was overthrown in 2003. Arif died there in 2007, the only Iraqi leader yet to die a normal death.